Sasken joins design project

Sasken Communications, a telecom and R&D services firm, here has joined chip maker ARM's Approved Design Centre Programme, a release from ARM said here on Tuesday.

Sasken will build solutions around ARM processors using the technologies it will gain access to through the programme. It is the second firm, after MindTree Consulting, to join the programme in India.

"By joining the ARM-Approved Design Centre Programme, we have underlined our expertise in ARM technology-based embedded chip design and implementation," said Shrikrishna Gokhale, vice president, semiconductors business unit, Sasken.

"Access to the advanced technology and knowledge base of ARM is an important addition to our IC design offering. This will enable us to extend our footprint in the embedded technology market, by providing our customers with innovative solutions and an accelerated design cycle," Gokhale said.

The partnership will increase the availability of ARM processors and tools in the rapidly growing Indian market, said Atul Arora, president, Commercial Operations, ARM India. "ARM has identified India as a fast-growing market for embedded chip design and is committed to its partners," Arora said.

ARM's RISC (reduced instruction set computing) processors go on cell phones for instance.

Partnerships, through such programmes, are a practice followed by important chip makers worldwide. They engage independent software and services vendors to build reference designs and software applications around their chips.

For instance, Texas Instruments has small software firms building applications for its OMAP family of chips.